The Masticator was started by two Minneapolis-area visionaries as a zine in the summer of 2004. Issue two was never realized, and half of its founding force moved to Brooklyn. Three years later, the electronic version of The Masticator has far eclipsed its single print-bound predecessor. Today, The Masticator posts art reviews, random urban snapshots, gentle political mockery, and other short articles on subjects like cars, fashion, and books.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Rejection Letter

now do shave off yr whiskuhs; stop irritating the cops; remain sober; stop trying to figure it all out for yrself--other minds have been here--avail yrself of them; they are called 'classics' which AINT ACADEMIC; brush yr teeth; find a way to pay th' rent & join the free public library & obey the chinese command: "walk in the courtyard as if alone... not seeing the rest of them..." & repeat the magic formula:

"now it is my time to walk on thin ice & face tigers" & recall the poem the greek sailor left for us :

"I bid you take ship & set sail, for many a ship, when ours was lost, weathered the gale..."

or words to effect/

however did you see the A&P Review?

most cordially

SM

That was the end of a rejection letter Sheri Martinelli sent to the poet Charles Bukowski in June of 1960 after Bukowski sent some unsolicited poems. He hadn't ever seen a copy of her poetry journal Anagogic & Paideumic Review, which was later one of the first to publish his poetry. They corresponded for almost a decade. Their letters are collected in Black Sparrow Press's 2001 book Beeerspit And Cursing.

Martinelli was a literary character of some renown in her day. She hosted Charlie Parker and other jazz musicians in her Greenwich Village apartment, she modeled for Vogue, she was a mistress of Ezra Pound's, Rod Steiger and E.E. Cummings collected her art, and she was a good friend of Allen Ginsberg. She died in 1996.